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Small Streets Make A Big Difference

Apr 25th, 2012
by Mark.
4 comments

Two plazas, but a world apart. Hanover Street is in red.

Could you find Hanover Street on a map of downtown Baltimore? I didn’t think so. This small street is just as obscure on the ground as it is on maps, but it has a secret importance. Hanover Street is a direct link between two downtown public spaces; Hopkins Plaza and Center Plaza. With renovations completed on Center Plaza, and the pedestrian bridge about to come down on the north side of Hopkins Plaza, Hanover Street is an opportunity to finally link these places, encourage a critical mass of visitors and support new downtown retail and residential projects.

I often use Pittsburgh as a case study for good planning and urban design projects, and I’m about to do it again. It’s a smaller city than Baltimore, but it gets urbanism and seems to be open to new design ideas. It’s also cool as hell and I suggest you visit at least once in your life.  Market Square, which PPS recently redesigned, is a national model for urban plazas and would make Jan Gehl and William Whyte proud. A block away there’s another public space which doubles as an ice skating rink in the winter, with Market Street serving as the direct connection between the two. The synergistic effect of these two public spaces, and the intuitive connection between them has helped revitalize the retail and restaurant market in this section of downtown Pittsburgh and added a lot of foot traffic in an area which used to be dead after 5pm.

Pittsburgh's Market Square. Yes, it really is that cool.

While Market Street is a pedestrian-only corridor, Hanover Street is open to traffic and a drop off area for the Radisson hotel. This makes the connection between our parks a bit more complicated, but not impossible. A few things need to be addressed:

 

  • The Sharaton Hotel’s blank wall on the west side of the street is the 800 lbs gorilla in the room. This thing looks like it was built to withstand nuclear war (designed in the 60s, it probably was).  Because it’s actually part of an underground garage, it’s not likely to be rebuilt anytime soon. Luckily, there’s potential patio space on top of the structure. If the concrete parapet wall were to be replaced with something more transparent, and if a few cafe tables were added, this could at least give the sense of more activity on the street, even if it’s not ground-level. With the pedestrian bridge gone, there would also be a direct visual connection between the patio and Hopkins Plaza.  The blank wall at ground level could also be refinished and host a mural, fun house mirrors, or a sarcastic comment in large print about the O’s actually winning a few games this year.
  • Traffic. Unsignaled mid-block crosswalks on Fayette and Baltimore Street should be the first thing addressed. If pedestrians have to run between cars to get between the two plazas, all the programming in the world won’t create a critical mass of visitors. Signals are needed at both intersections.
  • The underground parking egress ramp on Fayette Street. Ok, there are actually two 800lbs gorillas in the room. It obstructs the line of sight to Center Plaza from Hanover Street, and creates another conflict point for pedestrians walking between the two plazas. Either close the ramp, or deck it over at the intersection and relocate it. Whose idea was it to put this thing here?
  • Center Plaza was redesigned a few years ago, but it still gives off a “hurry up and move along” vibe when there are no events going on. The problem is the seating; it’s around the perimeter, with a vacuum in the center of the space. The grass is green I guess, but with a few cafe tables, chairs, and some trees in the center, it would be a much more active place. Think of a miniature version of Farragut Square in DC.

What’s amazing is how these two plazas can exist so close together, yet seem so far apart. It’s not enough to just build open spaces and hope people show up. Attention to details like sight lines, pedestrian comfort, traffic issues, and seating arrangements are what differentiate deserted spaces from active ones.  The two major hotels on Hanover Street and the Metro station are also huge opportunities to get more use out of both plazas.

Baltimore could learn from the master plans of L’Enfant, Oglethorpe, and Haussmann. Well thought out paths, links, nodes, and corridors were the foundations that built unique and beautiful cities around the world. Making Hanover Street a better link would be a small step in this direction.

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My Bike Was Stolen And How I Survived It

Apr 17th, 2012
by Mark.
10 comments

Morrissey. Because he's emo enough to understand the stuff dudes go through when their bikes get stolen.

So my bike was stolen last Saturday. Partly my fault. I was in a hurry to get to DC, and put the U lock around my wheel instead of the frame when I parked near the convention center light rail stop. Why was I in a hurry?  So I could catch a presentation by economist Ed Glaeser, of course.  Probably the least expected reason for running to catch a train, but it’s totally true and probably makes me kind of a nerd. Damn, that dude can speak in concise, interesting 5 minute long paragraphs without an “ah”, “um”, or “er”, but more on his speech in a future post.

When I got back from DC, I found the lock still on the wheel, but the bike was gone gone gone.  I walked home that night. It was a dark, lonely, itchy walk. Itchy because of the new Hot Topic polyester shirt I was wearing. Thoughts racing through my head in the warm spring night; Where did it all go wrong? Will I ever trust again?  Is it time to buy a Hummer? Why did the Rolling Stones suck so bad after “Some Girls”? I went through all 5 stages of grief during that walk. Bewilderment, hunger, excitement, rage, and finally dizziness.

I immediately sent out a twitter alert. This may be akin to standing on your front porch and yelling, “Did anyone see a burglar?” right after your house got broken into, but I had to try. My desperate plea reverberated through the Internet and garnered a few pats on the back and “there there”s. My favorite response was from Bill Helman (@thinkpol):

“First, Tom Petty’s guitars are stolen, now Car Free Baltimore’s bike? Wish more people adhered to Wil Wheaton’s Law”

I was just honored to be in the same sentence as Tom Petty.

Because being bike and car free would be too much masochism for me to handle, I went to Race Pace on Key Highway the next day and said, “Give me the cheapest, crappiest bike you have”, because I have priorities and spend my money on rare, 19th century Dutch cookie jars rather than bikes. After doing a few test drives, I wound up with some sort of mountain bike. It has two wheels, gears, and will hold me over until my will power caves completely and you see a post entitled: “I just bought a BMW 328i. Car Free Baltimore is officially done. See ya.”

So what’s the lesson of my story? That’s kinda obvious. You really shouldn’t listen to anything the Rolling Stones put out after the late 70s. Also, if you have to shop for clothes at Hot Topic, keep away from the Polyester. That stuff will really make you itch.

 

Thanks to Baltimore Velo, B’more Bikes, and all the other people on Twitter who got the word out about my bike.  It looks like this.

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Why I Still Won’t Give In And Get A Car

Apr 3rd, 2012
by Mark.
8 comments

This is pretty much your future if you go car free.

It’s been awhile since I’ve written something about the original premise of my blog: living without a car.  On the other hand, it’s kind of a miracle this site hasn’t turned into a collection of nutso posts about “101 Varieties of Boiled Eggs” or “Understanding your Neighborhood Cricket”.  Before I bring it all back home, I’m giving a shoutout to my friend Victor who is cycling across (well, more like around) Europe for the next few months.  Read about his journeys here. He’s also the guy who helped bring you the latest, greatest Baltimore Bike Map which will go public next month.

Despite recent issues with MTA customer service and a former car free-er who will now go back in the cage, I’m still doing it. Why? Because.

  • Just too much fun. Sometimes cycling down St. Paul Street in the spring feels like flying. Or at least on a long runway about to take off.
  • Health. Did I mention I used to be overweight before I sold my car? For real. Incidental exercise and lifestyle changes helped me get in shape more than going to the gym 5 days a week.  I feel healthier too.  Just like cool, respectable people aren’t meant to watch episodes of The Office when it went dumb and slapstick after season 5,  bodies aren’t meant to be caged up in a car for hours a day.
  • Psychological stuff, like in the brain.  It’s funny how much more anxious I was when I had a car. I attribute part of it to spending less time and money on bullshit. No buying gas. No sending checks to vampire insurance conglomerates. No leaving happy hours early because I parked in the police chief’s spot (kidding!).  No twitchy, grinning mechanic telling me I need to replace the flux capacitor on my hyperdrive unit. Not having a car somehow makes you more free in the important ways.
  • It makes you bad ass. Raining? I used to cry when it rained.  Now I’m like a duck.  Or something.  The water just rolls off my back. Cold? Hot? Hail? Volcanoes?  Whatever. I can take it. Being outside more makes you better able to deal with the outside.
  • Serendipity. Last night as I got off the train from DC, I decided to take the #3 back downtown to pick up my bike.  Worn out and beaten down from a full day of educational funtivities, hoola hoop tournaments, and hopscotch (yes, for me. I don’t have kids) my demeanor was akin to an old man trying to bring back soup at a deli (credit: G. Constanza).   Some little 3 year old girl noticed this, deemed it unacceptable, and made a rambling series of funny faces until I broke and started laughing.

Little Girl:1  Me: 0. Peace.

 

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The Difference Between Roads and Streets

Mar 16th, 2012
by Mark.
2 comments

A street in Hong Kong. Probably not wide enough for rush hour traffic, but that's OK.

Listen to any Bruce Springsteen song and you’ll probably hear a reference to “the street”. This is often accompanied by stanzas about how he spent a summer building a ’72 Challenger from scratch, stole a girl from a dude in L.A., or found spiritual salvation in the hum of an inline V6. While Springsteen often uses “streets” and “roads” interchangeably, the terms are often confused by planners and engineers. Let me break it down.

Roads

  • Exist in an netherworld separate from neighborhoods, civic engagement, and anything else that doesn’t fit into a traffic model.
  • Efficient, but fragile. Primary purpose is to move traffic. Like a pipe moves water.
  • Very serious business.  Measured by delay, congestion, level of service.
  • Very “Platonic” as defined in Taleb’s critique of predictability in ”Black Swan“  (top-down, formulaic, closed-minded, skeptical). Yes, I reference this book a lot. Deal with it.

Streets

  • A civic stage.  A platform for creative, social, and economic life.
  • Robust and complimentary.  Multiple activities ensures a vibrant, healthy public space.
  • Democratic and “bottom up”. While infrastructure is built by the city, adaptable and community driven uses gives a neighborhood ownership of the street.
  • Playful, intuitive, exists with neighborhoods, not despite them.

Charles Marohn at Strong Towns explains the concepts of roads and streets using 45mph design speeds as an example. Disregarding surrounding land uses, economic value and social health of neighborhoods, roads designed to be “safe to a fault” have been the status quo for a long time:

The value of a street comes from its ability to support land use patterns that create capturable value. The street with the highest value is the one that creates the greatest amount of tax revenue with the least amount of public expense over multiple life cycles. If we want to maximize the value of a street, we design it in such a way that it supports an adjacent development pattern that is financially resilient, architecturally timeless and socially enduring.

These simple concepts are totally lost on us.  If you want to start to see the world with [accurate] eyes and truly understand why our development approach is bankrupting us, just watch your speedometer. Anytime you are traveling between 30 and 50 miles per hour, you are basically in an area that is too slow to be efficient yet too fast to provide a framework for capturing a productive rate of return. (Strong Towns)

Well said.  Pick the average state highway, urban arterial, neighborhood street with average speeds of 35+ mph, or run of the mill downtown arterial which prioritizes auto traffic, and you’ll see an example of a road. Often, these roads try to be both a street and road, but fail at both. For instance, a state highway designed to funnel traffic as quickly as possible with numerous curb cuts serving auto-centric big box stores is neither an efficient road nor a neighborhood enhancing and economically vibrant street. By trying to serve both through and local trips in such a mono-modal fashion, and by encouraging inefficient and economically draining development patterns, we see that these types of roads erode instead of create value for cities.

Finding examples of streets is less clear cut, but far more interesting. Luckily, Daniel Toole has done a great job of documenting the best examples of streets – alleys.  His blog (and his new book, “Tight Urbanism“), is a photographic journey into alleys all over the world. When streets are tightly framed by buildings and surrounded by a mix of uses, something magical happens. It’s the sense of serendipity- turn a corner and you may find an exotic fruit vendor, a busker playing your new favorite song, or a Thai restaurant tucked into a small corner.

Alleys work great as streets because they create an intimate streetscape which serves as a “stage” for outdoor cafes, performers, and other activities.  Based on Donald Appleyard’s research showing that residents of streets with light traffic had three times more friends and twice as many acquaintances as the people who lived on streets with high volumes of traffic, it stands to reason that alleys take this concept to the next level, with the social capital of alleys surpassing even low volume streets and providing more opportunities for social interaction and street life. It can also be argued that alleys are streets in their purest form – primarily a civic stage, robust, “bottom up”, and contributing to civic life.

Jackson Heights Plaza in NYC is a great example of a road turned into a street.  Continuing the precedent of  public plaza installations throughout the city, travel lanes converted into new outdoor cafes and other people-oriented uses have energized neighborhoods, increased foot traffic and given a boost to local businesses. 

Streets converted into pedestrian plazas were a city planning fad in the 1970s and 1980s and were expected to revitalize downtowns, but instead, the conversions often created dead zones due to poor management and lack of foot traffic. NYC’s program strategically locates plazas by selecting sites with active retail, tourism magnets, and abundant foot traffic.  The plazas have also been a boon to nearby businesses. Would you rather do businesses next to 45 mph traffic, or on a street where people are encouraged to stroll into your shop without fear of being hit by a bus?

Would you rather do businesses next to 45 mph traffic, or on a street where people are encouraged to stroll into your shop without fear of being hit by a bus?

The Tactical Urbanism Guide from The Street Plans Collaborative  is a excellent guide to creative, community focused public space projects (full document below). A lot of examples focus on low cost, short turn-around projects non profits and community groups could initiate.  Small things like adding chairs to a street corner, creating a garden out of a vacant lot, or building a mini-park out of sod, benches and portable planters in a parking space can change how neighborhoods think about streets and public spaces. The very process of planning and building these projects can also strengthen communities.   

Small, grass roots projects highlighted in the Tactical Urbanism Guide also challenge what could be considered the dictatorship of auto-focused public spaces. With streets often making up more than 15% of cities total land area, leaving these spaces dedicated solely to automobiles is an environmental, social, and economic waste. While cities are spending enormous amounts of money to maintain their streets and related utilities, there should be a better return on investment than simply supplying drivers a marginally smoother ride or shaving 2 minutes off of an auto trip.  The Tactical Urbanism Guide encourages readers to think creatively about what a street could mean for a neighborhood.  

Finally, I can’t mention livable streets without mentioning the Open Streets Initiative, an effort to bring Bogata style Cyclovias to cities across the U.S. Open Streets events close off a series of streets to traffic (usually on Sunday) to encourage physical activity, socializing, community events, and local business patronage. These events also bring people from diverse walks of life together. People who may have never run into each other during the course of their daily routines.

The true potential of a street isn’t the efficient movement of vehicles, but the social and design qualities that make people want to stay around awhile.

 

 

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Urban Highways as Land Banks

Feb 27th, 2012
by Mark.
2 comments

Land freed up after the I-195 highway removal in Providence, RI.

Last week I attended the “Re-Imaging Urban Highways” program in Philadelphia with my friend Scott.  Organized by Drexel University and The Next American City, the event was a who’s who of visionary planners at the top of their game. The presentations focused  on portions of the Interstate system that cut through cities and ways in which communities, planners, and local political leaders can ameliorate the negative impacts of these behemoths.

The history of the Interstate System is long, and going into it here may squander the 10 readers I have left, but I’m willing to take that chance. What we can say is that the core decisions which led to the Interstate being built through cities were made by powerful people at the U.S. Bureau of Public Roads, the highway lobby, and an array of other suits at the state and local level who couldn’t wait to “renew” cities, sell cars, and move people as quickly as possible from cubicles to suburban homes in time for their 6pm noodle salad dinner.

Highway promoters and builders envisioned the new interstate expressways as a means of clearing slum housing and blighted urban areas. These plans actually date to the late 1930s, but they were not fully implemented until the late 1950s and 1960s. Massive amounts of urban housing were destroyed in the process of building the urban sections of the interstate system.

By the 1960s, federal highway construction was demolishing 37,000 urban housing units each year; urban renewal and redevelopment programs were destroying an equal number of mostly-low-income housing units annually. The amount of disruption, a report of the U.S. House Committee on Public Works conceded in 1965, was astoundingly large. As planning scholar Alan A. Altshuler has noted, by the mid-1960s, when interstate construction was well underway, it was generally believed that the new highway system would “displace a million people from their homes before it [was] completed.”A large proportion of those dislocated were African Americans, and in most cities the expressways were routinely routed through black neighborhoods.  Raymond A. Mohl, The Interstates and the Cities:
Highways, Housing, and the Freeway Revolt

This is how it was. In the mid 20th century, cities were just places on a map, traffic problems to be solved, and often times, vibrant neighborhoods were destroyed in the name of efficiency. As urban living and the reputation of cities have seen a resurgence during the last 20 years, these anachronistic viaducts have created more problems. Places like San Francisco, Portland, Providence, and Boston were left with blighted freeway ribbons through prime (sometimes waterfront) real estate. To paraphrase Peter Park, former Planning Director of Denver and Milwaukee and Loeb Fellow at Harvard, we used billions of dollars of federal money to devalue some of the most valuable real estate in America.

As much as it’s about getting rid of ugly freeways which divide neighborhoods, it’s also about economics.  A comment made by the panel at “Re-Imaging Urban Highways” rang especially true; The land dedicated to urban freeways is an open faucet leaking money from the city. Instead of property tax revenue, new businesses, vitality, and population growth, these highways consume land, depress land values, and give nothing back except a marginally shorter car ride for (usually non-resident) commuters. I could make a mother-in-law joke here, but I won’t.

But getting rid of urban highways sometimes takes an act of god, or god-like political will and community mobilization. To paraphrase Thomas Deller, Director of Planning + Development, City of Providence, most state DOTs (agencies that have control of Interstates), don’t give a damn about cities.  In Providence, where I-195 was torn down to create 20 acres of  land which will be used to improve the social, economic and environmental health of the city core, requests by city officials for RIDOT to study highway removal alternatives were originally ignored. It took work by community groups which, in turn, pushed the hand of the governor to demand that RIDOT study highway removal, to make the project happen. Other removals, like the Embarcadero in San Franscisco, were catalyzed by earthquakes, while proposals like the teardown of I-95 in Philadelphia are piggybacking off of regularly scheduled highway repair/rebuilds. If hundreds of millions are being spent to repair infrastructure, why not make the city a better place for it?

Hearing about the successes of urban highway removals in Providence,  I thought about US 40 in West Baltimore.  While it won’t happen tomorrow, the Red Line will be built, and eventually, a higher use will come out of the 20 blocks which are now dedicated to a redundant highway stub. If there’s some good that came out of urban highways, it’s that these structures serve as land banks which can spark imaginations and encourage planners and politicians to re-imagine what neighborhoods around urban highways can be.

 

See the Seattle Mobility Plan’s case studies of urban freeway removals for a rundown of projects all over the world.

***Shoutout to BIKEMORE, Baltimore’s new bicycle and livable streets advocacy group.  Don’t think they have a blog yet, but you should follow them on twitter: @bikemorebmore

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Are Urban Arterials and Pedestrian Safety Mutually Exclusive?

Feb 23rd, 2012
by Mark.
1 comment

Pedestrian Traffic Accidents, 2007-2010. What interesting things stand out?

While looking at a pedestrian traffic accident map for Baltimore the other day, one obvious thing stood out;   injuries and fatalities are collected around arterial streets. Besides the obvious reasons for caring about this issue, pedestrian crashes usually make up the majority of traffic related fatalities, and while a fender bender is often easy to walk away from, pedestrian traffic injuries are often life changing events.

So, for non-transporation planners, urban arterial streets are usually 4 lane roads which accommodate through traffic – usually downtown to suburb commuters. Traffic speeds and volumes tend to be higher on these streets, and while many of Baltimore’s arterials double as neighborhood “Main Streets”, like Greenmount Ave., the character of these corridors often leans towards automobiles rather than comfortable, pedestrian environments. In the suburbs, arterials often connect banausic subdivisions or lame strip malls with little pedestrian activity, so it’s not a problem to design these streets for maximum throughput. In urban areas, there is a greater chance for accidents due to pedestrians, bicycles, transit vehicles, and cars all vying for space on a street designed for rush hour traffic.  Things get messy.

Baltimore is not alone.  NYC’s Pedestrian Safety Report shows that while traffic injuries and fatalities have dropped considerably since 2000, major two-way streets account for 47% of pedestrian fatalities but only 12% of the road network. The report also shows serious pedestrian crashes are about two-thirds more deadly on major street corridors than on smaller local streets. So what is NYC doing about the problem? Recent road diet projects are narrowing streets, reducing the number of traffic lanes, adding bike lanes, and widening sidewalks.  Will gridlock ensue? Probably not. Will the world come to an end?  Probably not. Will angry drivers write Mayor Bloomberg and demand their traffic lanes back? Perhaps, but in the interest of public safety, livable communities, and reasonable-ness, the mayor shouldn’t listen to them.

My favorite design guidelines come from famed planner and engineer John N. LaPlante of T.Y. Lin. I won’t repeat his recommendations, which I laid out here, but traditional methods of traffic engineering and design don’t necessarily apply to urban streets.  Inconveniencing drivers by adding 2 minutes to their trip is a reasonable trade off for improved pedestrian safety, neighborhood character, and the economic development benefits which accrue with increased pedestrian and bicycle accessibility.

The answer to the question posed in the title has been “yes” up until very recently.  The very concept of “arterials” in urban areas also comes into question – who wants to live on or do business on a street primarily designed for rush hour traffic?  With enormous amounts of traffic crash data collected, and complete street and road diet designs becoming more accepted by municipalities throughout the country, we have the tools needed to make significant pedestrian safety gains by focusing on major gateway streets.

 

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Book Reviews: Jeff Mapes, Tom Vanderbilt, Antero Pietila

Feb 6th, 2012
by Scott Adams.
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Today’s guest post is by Scott Adams, a voracious reader, a great cook, and a fellow Clemson alumnus. His blog (and Erin’s. Hi!) is pretty badass.

Here are my thoughts on a handful of books I’ve read in the last several months, ranging from driving/bicycling to rowhouse types to redlining/demographic change.

Enjoy!

Traffic: Why We Drive the Way We Do (and What It Says About Us)

by Tom Vanderbilt

This book takes in interesting look at a seemingly mundane task: driving and traffic. Anyone who’s out on the roads should read this, as it’s got a lot of great food for thought.

Page 81 has a particularly resonating quote about the real danger of cell phones, DVD players and numerous other in-car distractions, “… keeping one’s eyes on the road is not necessarily the same thing as keeping one’s mind on the road.”

In another section, the author summarizes the theories of Hans Monderman, a Dutch traffic engineer who advocated a much more nuanced approach to traffic and pedestrian safety. Monderman noted there is a “traffic world” (highway, impersonal, standardized, meant only for cars, speed, efficiency, homogeneity) and a “social world” (village-like, the car is a guest, not sole inhabitant, street has other uses besides conveying people from one place to another, behavior governed by local customs/interpersonal contact, more than abstract rules). These are valuable concepts for both urban planners/traffic engineers and everyday drivers – drive fast on the highway, not in a neighborhood or town center.

Pedaling Revolution: How Cyclists Are Changing American Cities

by Jeff Mapes

This book provides a great overview of the evolution of bicycle transportation and culture. Its focus is America, but The Netherlands, Denmark and Germany also feature prominently for their development of bicycle transportation.

Chatham Village: Pittsburgh’s Garden City

by Angelique Bamberg

I visited Pittsburgh last summer and had the chance to walk around this community. The slate roofs, brick homes and mini-parks all look pretty sharp even after 70 years. A section from pg. 64 notes:

“The project concept thus changed from that of a long-term housing solution for low-income families to a short-term solution for the middle-class. Modern row houses, available at moderate rents, were to provide a middle-class alternative to high-rent apartments in run-down slums for those unable to take out a mortgage.”

Given today’s housing market, it’s a good model for future housing: quality rental housing for the middle-class.  A mortgage is okay if you can, or want to afford one, but why not free up your money for other things?

The Baltimore Rowhouse

by Charles Belfoure, Mary Ellen Hayward

Daylight rowhouses, built from the 1910s to the 1940s, offer an ideal housing type for achieving density, walkability and transit access. They also provide individual residents with small, manageable front and backyards while allowing natural daylight into every part of the house (only two rooms deep, at 20′ wide x 40′ deep).

You’ll learn about every type of rowhouse built in the city from from the 1800′s to modern-day, plus get some insight on how the park system was created (hint: streetcar lines paid a tax that supported land-acquisition).

Not in My Neighborhood: How Bigotry Shaped a Great American city

by Antero Pietila

This book is essential reading for understanding urban America’s past and its present. The author spares no one in highlighting the many nuanced and overt instances of bigotry playing out between the Baltimore’s racial, religious and economic groups. One fascinating example is how German-descended Jews often barred Eastern European/Russian-descended Jews from real estate and social club interactions. For example, the Suburban Country Club was a German Jewish club that would not allow any Eastern European Jews, hence the Woodholme Country Club was established.

Overall, Baltimore was a big, proud ship in 1950, with almost 1 million people, but has taken hits from torpedoes known as riots, de-industrialization, job loss, and other issues to slowly sink to 620,000 people.  Let’s hope the torpedoes stop, the holes get plugged and the ship stabilizes.

 

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The Power of Prevention and Innovation in Transportation Safety

Jan 26th, 2012
by Mark.
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Alexandra Rojas Lopera, director of The Fondo de Prevencion Vial

My schedule for this year’s Transportation Research Board Annual Conference was a bit different than last year. Instead of going to  high-profile, big name sessions, I wanted to see how less obvious and more diffuse initiatives were changing transportation policy and improving lives.

Greig Craft started the Asia Injury Prevention Foundation in 1999 as a way to reduce road crash fatalities and injuries in Asia and Africa. Both continents have a huge segment of their populations riding motorcycles, bicycles, and other motorized non-automobile vehicles. There’s also an epidemic of not wearing helmets in these parts of the world based on social norms and misinformation.

Craft, with the The Global Helmet Vaccine Initiative, redesigned helmets so they would fit children better and be cooler in tropical climates.  Profits go back into the community for marketing and road safety education. The program is spreading worldwide, with a UN Resolution calling for a 50 percent reduction in road traffic fatalities by 2020 and signed by more than 90 countries.

 The Fondo de Prevencion Vial, directed by Alexandra Rojas Lopera,  is an outreach and enforcement campaign in Columbia to get roadway users to obey traffic laws. Unlike most countries where the majority of traffic accidents take place in rural and suburban areas, Columbia sees a disproportionate share of traffic accidents in cities due to lax enforcement and a culture of reckless driving and pedestrian behavior. Research has shown that positive marketing campaigns are more effective than fear-mongering. Instead of talking down to the public, the campaign encourages them to be smart, responsible, and avoid excuses for reckless behavior.

Because the number of injuries and fatalities prevented due to these programs is difficult to measure, prevention efforts and the people behind them don’t usually get the recognition they deserve.  As discussed in the book, “The Black Swan: The Impact of the Highly Improbable” by Taleb, if someone led the charge to allow firearms in cockpits before 9/11, nobody would write a history book about this person preventing the U.S. terrorist attacks. There is no way we would have known this policy was directly responsible for preventing hijackings. Their name would be a footnote in the infinite encyclopedia of history.

Likewise, these traffic safety efforts are attempting to change dangerous habits deeply rooted in culture. It’s not enough to just provide helmets or tell people to drive safely.  In Roger’s “Diffusion of Innovation”, the spread of products and new ideas has to be culturally sensitive, reach the right opinion leaders, and have a critical mass to become wide spread enough to make a difference:

Within the rate of adoption there is a point at which an innovation reaches critical mass. This is a point in time within the adoption curve that enough individuals have adopted an innovation in order that the continued adoption of the innovation is self-sustaining. In describing how an innovation reaches critical mass, Rogers outlines several strategies in order to help an innovation reach this stage. These strategies are: have an innovation adopted by a highly respected individual within a social network, creating an instinctive desire for a specific innovation. Inject an innovation into a group of individuals who would readily use an innovation, and provide positive reactions and benefits for early adopters of an innovation.

The hope is to turn authority led innovation into collective innovation decisions. Seeing all of your friends wear a helmet is a more powerful message than seeing a poster telling you to wear one.  Getting positive information out to the public in the right way, to the right people, and in the right format is just as important as building new infrastructure when it comes to public health and safety.

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Sometimes, Baltimore Transit Works

Jan 19th, 2012
by Mark.
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Another successful trip by bus

Patrick, a loyal reader, writes in to tell us about his journey to work today. It’s a tale which would make even Odysseus weep with envy and awe.

Since I write you to complain when I have a particularly bad bus experience, I thought I should write to let you know about a pretty good one today.

For some reason this morning the drum brake on my rear wheel’s internal hub decided to freeze up at 23rd & Guilford. I’m lousy at fixing and maintaining bikes and while I’ve got a bunch of tools under my seat, I don’t have a crescent wrench there to release the brake cable. It deserves a tune-up and I’ve got a gift certificate to 20Twenty waiting for me to get over there.

 But instead of being stranded, I carried my bike over to Greenmount and caught the #8. After I got on I realized that my smart card was empty and all I had was $10 cash. But the helpful driver pointed out that I could refill my SmartTrip card and was patient while I did (after I got over thinking she wanted me to pay $10 for the $1.60 ride).

So, on behalf of all MTA patrons, I want to thank the MTA for having bike racks on all the buses, a functioning smart card system, and frequent service on Greenmount so that when one mode stops working there’s a good and convenient alternative.

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Interview With Liam Quigley

Jan 5th, 2012
by Mark.
2 comments

The Idea Of Order in Miami

After some server problems and a much needed hiatus in Miami, I’m back and bringing it for real.  Quick observations about Miami:

  • Lots of new bike lanes on 5 lane arterials with average speeds of 50mph. Really? I didn’t use them, and hardly anyone else did while I was there. Need more cycle tracks.
  • Three words: Art Deco everything.  Hotel lobbies straight out of Mad Men.
  • Crazy attractive women.
  • Metro system surprisingly useful. Buses surprisingly clean and on time.  New metro link to airport and multi-modal transportation center will be a boon to the system.
  • Paradise Radio will take you there on your drive to Key West.
  • Crazy attractive women.

Now for our feature presentation. Liam Quigley is the president of the MICA cycling association and regularly commutes by bike between Downtown and Upper Charles Village.  He contributes to the Baltimore Brew and writes for Baltimore Velo.

Some people want to save the world. Others just want to save a buck. What inspired you to reduce your car use?

My car use has actually increased this year since I started using Zipcar, from driving very occasionally (only while moving) to driving when it makes sense, like somewhere accessible only by automobile. My commuting has always been by bicycle or public transit, but now I have access to cars when I need them without the financial burden of owning one.

Suburbanites say some crazy things about this city. Did you have any fears about traveling in Baltimore without a car? Are any of those concerns still an issue for you?

I’ve had my fair share of aggressive overtakers, right-hooks, and general negative encounters on the streets, but nothing that would ever make me consider changing the way I commute. There are plenty of neighborhoods that I feel more comfortable riding a bicycle in than walking through.

What’s the coolest place in Baltimore (a park, cafe, bar, neighborhood, etc) you discovered that you wouldn’t have had you not ditched your car?

Almost every good place I’ve found in Baltimore has been by walking or bicycling there.

When you’re in a car, you can wear pretty much whatever, but you have to be more prepared when you’re outside. Plus, more people see you on a bus or on a bike compared to driving. Has your clothing style changed at all since going car lite/car free?

I feel pretty strongly that it is very possible to look really good and still ride your bike places. I’ve had longer commutes and just pack an extra t-shirt. I have yet to find myself comprising my clothing for my method of commuting or vice versa. I’ve always though that people who say bicycling won’t “take off” until there are showers at every office building are probably overdressed.

Part of the beauty of cities is serendipity. Finding something meaningful in an unexpected place. Is there a person or event you’ve encountered while walking/biking/taking transit that stands out?

Most of my significant ‘finds’ in Baltimore have been by bike, and I end up returning to these places by bike over and over again. It’s so much easier to go between neighborhoods by bicycle.

After living car free for a year, I would find it difficult to move back to an auto-dominated suburb, but the “American Dream” is still identified with a big single family house with a huge yard and an SUV. Has your idea of the “American Dream” changed at all?

Never has.

How can we make living car lite/car free an option for more people in Baltimore?

Start with buses that run on time and incentivizing public transit. Legitimizing bicycling as a transportation device even further would be great.

We need a group like Transportation Alternatives in Baltimore, and serious penalties for drivers who kill or injure pedestrians and cyclists.

We will also never succeed in this until we take care of pedestrians properly. Walking in Baltimore really sucks. The lights don’t change for you (even if there are lights), the crosswalks are non-existent, and drivers treat pedestrians like shit.

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